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If there's a single type of article that is the bread and butter of the New York Times, it's "Awful person who made the world a worse place every moment that they continued to draw breath was actually a real human being and sort of nuanced, maybe, I guess."
"He was a piece of garbage, take him for all in all."
It almost feels like they're trying to justify their own personality traits and behavior, through that person.
She lived near me. Now I regret never knocking on her door. This tenderly brutal remembrance reminds me that "obituary" comes from Latin "obiit", which means "s/he went away". Goodbye, Nikkie, we could have been frenemies.
This article very much has rose-colored glasses, a gauzy overlay, and is quite light on actual facts about her reporting.

For another viewpoint, see Richard Rushfield's summary:

https://theankler.com/p/rushfield-nikki-finke-rip

In his telling, she found a way to use the attention economy against a tired set of trade publications, and built a brand on top of that:

> So in theory she was taking on some powerful people, but it was always with the protection and support of even more powerful people.

Unlike OP, his article actually has insight into how this works.

"Was Nikki Finke a genius or a monster? Friends and colleagues try to make sense of the entertainment industry’s brashest chronicler."

She died in October 2022. I had never heard of her. Article is basically an obit. It looks interesting.

I've also never heard of her. After reading her Wikipedia article and two news stories, she seems to have given Hollywood execs the gossip rag quality berating stars typically get. Which would explain why she was hated.
I thought this was going to be about Armond White.
Armond White isn't a reporter, he's a paid troll who boosts circulation by always saying the opposite of what everyone else says.

That said, yes, I thought this would be about Walter Winchell or Hedda Hopper.